


not a story

by ifreet



Category: due South
Genre: F/M, Kidfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-05-24
Updated: 2009-05-24
Packaged: 2017-10-10 10:27:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/98719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ifreet/pseuds/ifreet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a nonstory.  It just won't grow into an actual story, even by my loose standards. And yet I couldn't shake the image enough to write something else to belmanoir's prompt. If it were a story, I can say that it would be unforgivably schmoopy, that Frannie should be walking in any minute now, and that the dryer's set too high.</p>
            </blockquote>





	not a story

**Author's Note:**

  * For [belmanoir](https://archiveofourown.org/users/belmanoir/gifts).



Let's start with a room. This room is defined by its windows, two of them, large and bright, that set the room apart from the bland sameness of rented apartments. The windows admit a bright slant of sun-yellow light, that speaks of Indian summer and westward views. The walls are off-white (or cream or eggshell or whatever almost-white color was the cheapest after the last renter). The floor is beige carpet.

Ray Kowalski is dancing across that carpet now. He switches styles by whim, keeping to the rhythm but not the genre of the music flowing through the room. The music is not loud -- just enough to blend the rumble-thump of drying clothes into an extra bass beat. He has his best girl on his arm -- nearly literally, now that she is old enough to hold herself upright and clap and crow when he spins.

His left arm grows tired again, so he switches Aida to the other side, swooping her to make her laugh. Sadly, the right arm isn't much more rested. He'd gone through most of the day one-handed, unwilling to set her down long enough to really give his arms a rest. Partly that was because he loves holding her, but it's also because she fusses when he sets her down. Frannie swears she'd settle if he just let her be, but he can't help giving in when it takes so little to make her happy. Though she is, possibly, getting a touch too heavy to hold all afternoon.

Nah.

Frannie won't say who the father is -- which is driving certain other Vecchios nuts -- but Ray doesn't care. Aida's his daughter in every way that counts. She's the reason he moved into this apartment for three, the one that Frannie'd pretty much picked out, though he'd signed the lease. (Frannie had been the one to insist upon having washer-dryer hookups in the apartment, which seemed a lot less picky and a lot more sensible now that he knew exactly how many clothes and towels a tiny person ran through in a day.) She's the reason his schedule is as nutty as it is now, with Ray working more second shifts so that he can be home while Frannie is at class. (And that was Frannie's doing, too, because he'd really figured Welsh would need convincing, and Frannie probably had something over him that Ray neither needed nor wanted to know.) Frannie and the baby are his whole world now, and even if he didn't see that coming, he wouldn't change it for anything.

And if Ray Vecchio wants to think they aren't married because he hasn't proposed, let him. Frannie will definitely set him straight when he visits next week (with Stella, and you could add that to the list of surprisingly okay things that Ray hadn't seen coming), and in the meantime Ray is completely willing to hang up on him if he pulls that mob-voice shit again. Vecchio is not as scary as he thinks he is. But Ray is still kinda glad the guy was out-of-state when he learned about him and Frannie, since he didn't _think_ Vecchio'd still be pissed enough to throw a punch by the time they got here. Probably. Even if he could be the dictionary definition of protective older brother -- you know, if dictionaries had definitions for phrases.

"Maybe I better be holding you when he gets here."

“Aph,” she answers and waves her tiny fist.

He grins. “That's my girl.”


End file.
